Malaysia Hosts ‘Hackathon’ to Boost Mobile Apps

Malaysia’s communications regulator is jointly hosting a 24-hour “hackathon” with AT&T Inc. beginning Sept. 7, its first effort with a foreign partner to encourage the development of mobile apps.

Bloomberg News

Teams participating in the Kuala Lumpur event will have access to AT&T’s tools and Application Programming Interface to build their apps. Roughly 200 developers, designers and entrepreneurs have signed up for the event, which the government hopes will yield apps for banking, traffic monitoring, weather and social media.

Developer events in Malaysia have been largely dominated by the government and local companies, but the country is seeking to encourage more Internet entrepreneurs through partnerships with multinational firms, said Mohd Ali Hanafiah, chief planning and development officer at the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

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“Commercializing the products and content is one of the biggest challenges,” said Mr. Hanafiah. “We don’t have that many market players.”

Malaysia’s Internet use expanded to more than 60% of the population in 2010, according to the latest official data available, but widespread access and comfort with paying for apps is low. Developers in Malaysia face challenges both in getting funding and reaching consumers.

Government regulators are working to extend broadband Internet to rural areas and the urban poor to promote basic Internet literacy. In April, six telecommunications companies agreed to build a submarine cable system linking Malaysia with Singapore, India, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, which may prompt companies to offer more data products and in turn boost the use of applications.

“The more open you can make your network and allow people to access and consume services easily, especially developers, the more you drive overall consumption,” said Abhi Ingle, vice president of Ecosystem and Innovation at AT&T.

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